Windows 8/Windows RT browser hack: Use Flash on any website

DroidXDA
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Monday, 5 November 2012

Windows 8 and Windows RT ship with the new Internet Explorer 10 web browser which has two different modes. In desktop mode, it looks like… well, a desktop web browser. But you can also use the new Windows 8-style full-screen mode to use it more like a tablet browser.

The full-screen version supports swipe-based navigation with support for gestures that let you do things like switch between tabs. But there’s limited support for Adobe Flash in this mode.

It turns out there’s a hack for that.

Technically Internet Explorer 10 can support Flash on pretty much any website. But Microsoft maintains a white list of sites that are compatible with the browser’s full-screen mode.

If you visit a site that’s not on that list, Flash doesn’t work.

But xda-developers forum member Marvin_S figured out how to access the white list and add sites to it.

You can find all the details inhis xda post, but in a nutshell you need to tell Internet Explorer not to get its list from Microsoft’s servers, then add any sites you want to access to the list on your computer and then delete your browsing history.

The trick works with both Windows 8 and Windows RT.

Since you’re turning off automatic updates, you’ll have to add any new sites manually. I suspect Microsoft’s list will get better over time. But if you can’t wait that long, it’s nice to have a way to use Flash in the full-screen, tablet-friendly version of Internet Explorer 10.

Windows 8 tablet users will also be able to install third party web browsers, but if you have a Windows RT tablet then Internet Explorer is pretty much the only game in town.